


Coin for the Man Who Has Nothing

by melannen



Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: Gen, Prophecy, Riddles, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006, recipient:tathchan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Morgon," he whispered, "I wish you had not been someone I loved so."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coin for the Man Who Has Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tathchan](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tathchan).



> For Yuletide 2005. This one should have been all five riddles, but I ran out of time.

1.  
 **Question: Who broke the locks on Nun's books of wizardry?**

Answer: Rood of An broke the locks on Nun's books of wizardry, with a Great Shout of surprise at the winning of a riddle-game. The books had been for centuries in the library of the College of Caithnard, where they opened only to the voices of the Masters. After that Shout, they would not be sealed, and stood for the reading of any one who passed. Years later, when Nun came to Caithnard to visit with the wizard Iff, she was asked to re-seal them, but refused, saying that what little wisdom they contained, she no longer wished to see locked away from the world. Given that, you would think that by now Master Tel would have stopped making Rood pay for that Shout. But no, every time I visit the College it's still "Don't upset Rood, boys! Remember what happened to Nun's books!" Because Riddle-masters never forget.

 **Stricture** : To answer a riddle is to open, forever, a book than can never be re-sealed.

 _(From "Crow-Wings", a riddle-book of Rood, Lord of An.)_

2.  
It was the wind that brought the answer, the wind that had ever been his ally, rising cool off the waters of Hed. The spring wind that lifted up a shock of pale brown hair and showed him, burning red against winter-pale skin, three stars on the forehead of a coltish young Prince of Hed.

Deth went blank and utterly motionless, like a hare that has seen the falcon stooping for it, become one wordless question without an answer. And then the wind stilled, and every piece of him said, with Morgon, "Yes."

Deth had been expecting a riddle-master, a man like Suth or Rhu who would give himself to the riddles that had been strewn over the realm, following the challenge of the hints that had been strewn across the realm into dark places and gnarled paths, with his eye only on winning the game, until all that was left to him was the riddle's answer ("Who is the Star-Bearer", Deth had asked a white-haired wizard once, at the end of a long night's riddling, when the College had not yet been founded and he bore a different name, "and what will he loose that is bound?")

What he had not been expecting was this clear-eyed man, was Morgon of Hed who stood beside him at the ship's railing and asked question after question, unselfconscious as if the questions themselves were their own end, and with such gentleness that Deth could hardly bear to look at him. Where, who, when, why, and the practiced answers flowed off Deth's tongue as lightly as ever until Morgon, in pure generosity, gave him back truth for them. And Deth found that he, suddenly, could no longer bear to be the High One's Harpist -- could not bear to be anyone else -- and slid his harp over his shoulder, and watched Morgon of Hed walk up the streets of Caithnard in his innocence and hope, into a riddle-game which would have no ending but death.

He had told the ship-master that he had business in Caithnard for the High One, which was true, like many things he said, in that everything he did was the High One's business. Ghisteslwchlohm's mind was linked with his, and Ohm was searching everywhere for any hint to the name of the one man he thought held the key to power. But when there was no other pressing need, Ohm didn't much care where Deth went to look.

The Heart's Hope Inn was probably the last place Ohm would have looked. In fact, in all his time in the city, Deth knew that he had never deigned to venture there, which gave him a certain half-cocked fondness for the place. It was a tavern in the district near the docks, and Deth remembered when it had been a friendly, cozy hearth where traders would drop in on the way back to their ships, for a warm drink of cider from Lungold and letters from home. The town had long since moved on, though, and today the street was occupied mostly by fish-sellers and stray cats, and the inn mostly occupied by men who knew how to look for truth in their wine-cups.

Deth was feeling some sympathy with stray cats today, and a tavern seemed a very good place to spend a few hours looking for the High One. There was a fight in progress when he walked in, as usual, so there were plenty of empty seats, and Deth acquired one along with a bottle of sour wine from Aum. He sat alone and listened to the noisy motion of the crowded city people around him, and felt the life and strength and sureness in it, saw in the swirling patterns of color the chaos and the power of such a mass of people, and in the way they moved around each other in the dances of the brawl and the commerce of the city he saw the order. It was the land-law they had shaped for themselves in this free city with no land-ruler except the High One, with a house full of riddles at its heart and the wide sea lapping at its edges. And he felt the same joy, the same peace, that he had tuned his harp-strings to one summer alone in the wild places of Hel.

No-one here recognized him as the Harpist of Lungold; even if they had seen the Harpist on some trade-ship or with a land-ruler's party, they would not think to look for him here any more than Ohm had looked here for the High One. But after awhile, once the fighting had worked itself out, a tall, raw-boned fisherman with a bruise just beginning to bloom across his cheek sat down beside him.

"You a harpist?" he asked, with a nod to the harp-case under Deth's chair, and Deth nodded back.

"I'm shipping out to An on the next tide," he offered. "See if there's any place for me at Anuin."

"I hear the king's daughter is finally going to be married," a man a few chairs down offered.

"Think they'll need harpists at the wedding?" Deth's companion asked.

"Could be," Deth answered. "I doubt they'd want my sort of harpist in the King's house, anyway," he said, and thought, not once they learn what's become of the man she's supposed to marry.

He grinned. "What sort of harpist are you, then?" he asked, and before Deth could turn him aside half the tavern was clamoring for a song, despite his protests that he'd had three glasses of wine already and his fingers were none too steady at the best of times. So he played for them, songs he'd never play at a king's court, that he'd learned in farm houses and grimy taverns and the holds of storm-tossed ships. They sang along too in their sea-rough voices, and he had his drinks paid for by laughing fishermen.

An hour before the tide came in he put away the harp, waved back their praises, and stepped out into the street, cheered despite himself. He met Morgon coming out of the College, looking more befuddled than ever, and listened to him babble ruefully all the way back to their ship, finding again the deep well of patience at the bottom of his soul.

Sitting at the harbor of Tol with Morgon behind him, he had thought "Finally." But now, walking beside him down the hill to a waiting trade-ship, he wished only for more time. Grant him time to come to it slowly and in peace, he thought, and marry Raederle and learn to play "The Love of Hover and Bird" with her, on the harp, while the year's grain ripens in the farms of Hed.

And then he stepped on the ship, and looked into the affable eyes of a red-haired trader, and felt the fragile peace break up under him. He ate that evening and laughed with them while Morgon wandered restlessly around the ship, and he did not let himself try to find the names of old friends in a laugh, or a familiar gesture or tilt of the head.

He retired early, having no taste to watch them make a mockery of their traders' faces, and woke in full dark to feel the restless plunge of the ship beneath him. They had wasted no time in setting the sails, and he had only time to answer Morgon's riddles before the ship reeled and plunged him into the dark of the sea.


End file.
